I have just purchased an 86 GN with many mods on the engine
I flushed the intercooler/TB and played around with the rod that controls boost. it seems that the previous owner didn't see the hoses that were blown off the y connector behind the turbo and, adjusted boost by reducing the rod length on the waste gate. I think I got this thing working but am curious about what my vacuum and boost readings should be @ what RPM and load. Thanks BTW: I am sorry I didn't buy one of these cars years ago. The thosands I spent to get other cars performing like this one does out of the box
Glad you're enjoying the "Dark Side"!
Normal vacuum (depending on altitude, cam, and IAC position) is about 14-16 inHg for idle.
That'll drop in Park and at cruise it can be 8-10inHg, depending on load, RPM and throttle position.
"it seems that the previous owner didn't see the hoses that were blown off the y connector behind the turbo and, adjusted boost by reducing the rod length on the waste gate."
It's good you found those lines were blown off, I believe those allow the computer to lower the boost when needed. BTW adjusting the boost by reducing or lengthening the rod length on the waste gate is how you adjust the boost unless you have some kind of bleed valve setup or boost controller, in other words that's not a bad thing, it's how you do it. Oh yeah, if you don't have a scan tool, get one.
What is the best scan tool that I should start out with? I was looking at the Scanmaster2.
Really it's personal preference. Some guys run one thing and swear by it, others run three things and say they can't see doing it any other way. Me, I just happened to have an old laptop laying around not doing anything that fit the bill for TurboLink so I use that. You might want to look at this, it's from Dean Nelson http://home.pacbell.net/sfnelson/turbo_regal_scantools.htm It's a pretty good writeup and he has the links to read more. On the turbolink website, which he has a link to, there is a big chart that lists all the info about the different scantools, a comparison chart. That way you can look at it and figure which is best for you. With my car getting faster, I'm starting to see why people use DS, not that TL is bad, quite the contrary, it's great but being limited to the ALDL rate I don't get that many frames. On the other hand I don't think DS has any boost sensing setup which I love on TL, it has helped me alot. All in all it comes down to preference. Or I guess you could say it comes down to that plus if you've got a laptop that can run either TL or DS and how much money you've got.